Matriarch

by Anne Edwards

  He was, in fact, still so outraged on his wedding day that he “had an outburst to Fruity [Metcalfe, a close friend and his best man] while dressing for dinner,” Lady Alexandra Metcalfe wrote in her diary on that day. “The family he is through with, the friends, staff... have also been awful. He intends to fight the HRH business as legally the King has no right to stop the courtesy title being assumed by his wife.” His first reaction had been to give up his own title if Wallis had none. But then he wrote the King stating that he simply would not admit the fact of Wallis not being Her Royal Highness.*

  Lady Metcalfe gives a good description of the wedding at the Chateau de Cande.† “The Civil Ceremony took place first, at which only Fruity & Herman R[ogers] were present.‡ During that time we [the remaining guests] sat & waited talking ordinarily as tho nothing unusual was happening...§ [The Reverend] Jardine came in first followed shortly by the Duke & Fruity who stood two yards from my chair.| Throughout the ceremony Fruity held for him the prayer book Queen Mary gave him when he was 10 with ‘to my darling David from his loving Mother’ written in it. Wallis on Herman’s arm came in the other door. She was in a long blue dress short tight-fitting coat blue straw hat with feathers & tulle, the loveliest diamond & sapphire bracelet which was his wedding present.

  “Jardine read the service simply & well... [The Duke’s] responses were clear & very well said... Her voice... lower but clear... He had tears running down his face when he came down into the salon after the ceremony. She also could not have done it better. We shook hands with them in the salon... If she occasionally showed a glimmer of softness, took his arm, looked at him as though she loved him one would warm toward her, but her attitude is so correct. The effect is of a woman unmoved by the infatuated love of a younger man. Let’s hope that she lets up in private with him otherwise it must be grim.”

  “Alas the wedding day in France of David & Mrs. Warfield,” Queen Mary wrote in her diary on June 3. “We all telegraphed him,” she added. The telegram from his mother wishing him and his bride happiness meant so much to the Duke of Windsor that he showed it to almost everyone present at the Chateau de Cande.

  The unthinkable had taken place. David had not only renounced the Throne, he had married “Mrs. Warfield.”* But despite the gesture of the telegram, Queen Mary remained un-reconciled to her eldest son. Unfortunately, the press covered David’s every move: his inappropriate rush to his fiancée’s side in France as soon as the divorce nisi had been granted, the constant barrage of posed press photographs, his playing in a golf match the day of his brother’s coronation. These things only deepened the tension between mother and son. Then his choice of June 3, his father’s birthday, as a date for a marriage whose incipient stages had caused King George V such great heartache was, for Queen Mary, the most unpardonable of all his transgressions since the Abdication. Lady Bertha Dawkins, one of her Ladies-in-Waiting, thought her continued fury at David “help[ed] her to bear what she called ‘the humiliation of it all.’” The Royal Family felt that much of the smooth transition from one Monarch to another was due to Queen Mary’s strength and popularity. “Thank God,” the Princess Royal wrote her mother during the crisis, “we all have got you as a central point, because without it [the family] might easily disintegrate.”

  There were Court functions and festivities throughout the entire coronation summer, and Queen Mary took part in most of them. She was “ablaze, regal and overpowering” at the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland’s ball on May 18, according to Chips Channon; “looking like the Jungfrau, white and sparkling in the sun” on June 22 at the Buckingham Palace garden party. She attended the Derby and the Garter Service, viewed the Aldershot tattoo, watched the International Lawn Tennis Championships at Wimbledon, and in academic robes laid the foundation stone of the new Bodleian Library Annexe at Oxford.

  Wherever she appeared, she was greeted with tremendous demonstrations by waiting crowds on both her arrival and departure. One time the cry “Thank God we’ve still got Queen Mary” was taken up by a whole street of enthusiastic admirers. Her overwhelming popularity did not make it easy for her to retire into the background as tradition demanded of a Queen Consort who had become Queen Mother.

  One late August morning, tears welled up into her eyes as she confessed to Lady Airlie, “Oh, Mabell, if you only knew how hard it has been; how I have struggled with myself. All through the years the King always told me everything first. I do so miss that."

  Lady Diana Cooper, after having “dined and slept” at Windsor as a guest of the King and Queen, commented on how different the atmosphere was from King Edward’s late regime. “That was an operetta,” she said. “This is an institution.” For Lady Airlie and Queen Mary, the new reign also brought changes. “It seemed strange,” Lady Airlie wrote, “when Ascot week came round not to be driving down to Windsor for the party; stranger still sometimes to overhear Queen Mary’s Household referred to as ‘the Old Court.’ But it was true; the line of demarcation between past and present is nowhere more apparent than with Monarchy.”

  Queen Mary’s Court adhered more rigidly to protocol than the new Court did. Lady Airlie tells us, “Knee breeches were compulsory for men who dined at Marlborough House, but not at Buckingham Palace,” and that Queen Mary refused to make any concessions even to the new American Ambassador, Joseph Kennedy, who told Lady Airlie that if he were to take to wearing English knee breeches, he would “offend folks in America.” Lady Airlie reported this to Queen Mary, who understood it perfectly but would not relax her own rule. Mr. Kennedy, therefore, was never invited to dine at Marlborough House.

  War clouds peppered the skies toward the end of the summer. Everyone was fearful that all that was needed was “a match to spark off a bigger war than the last one.” With Hitler “moulding the German people to his aspirations,” war, if it came again, would be different from the last, not between nations but “between the forces of evil and everything that Christianity has stood for.”

  By summer 1938, sixty-nine-year-old Neville Chamberlain had replaced Baldwin as Prime Minister, and Chamberlain was set on obtaining peace at all costs. Hitler had staked his claims to the Sudeten areas of Czechoslovakia. The Czechs refused to give in to the Germans, and France threatened to fight if an inch of Czechoslovakian territory were violated. On September 15, 1938, Neville Chamberlain met Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden. He returned with the ominous news that Germany was demanding and would not be satisfied with anything less than secession and incorporation of the Sudetenland into the Reich.

  On September 25, after Chamberlain met with the King, Queen Mary, the Royal Family, and most of London were fitted with gas masks. Alarm spread through the country as the newspapers headlined stories that the Fleet had mobilised and that trenches had been dug in Hyde Park. The Prime Minister, it was said, had sent “SOS messages, in a last attempt to save the world, to both Mussolini and to Hitler” on the morning of September 28, the day the House of Commons convened for a special session.

  When her daughter-in-law Marina informed her that she was going to the House of Commons to be there when a decision of sorts was made, Queen Mary, in an unprecedented decision, said she would come along.

  The House was solemn and every seat filled. There had been no reply from Hitler and Mussolini, and when Prime Minister Chamberlain spoke, he told the story of his negotiations with Hitler calmly. Queen Mary (“a dark black figure”), seated behind the Duchess of Kent in Mrs. Fitzroy’s gallery, never moved during the hour speech, which ended with the announcement that Hitler had agreed to postpone negotiations for another twenty-four hours—and that the Führer had invited Chamberlain to Munich the next day, along with M. Daladier of France.

  Queen Mary commented in her diary, “The PM’s speech was clear and explained everything... & the relief felt round the house was remarkable & all the members of the Conservative & National Govt cheered wildly—I was myself so much moved I could not speak to any of the ladies in the Gallery, several of them, even those unkn
own to me seized my hand, it was very touching. Let us pray now that a lasting Peace may follow.” She went directly from the House of Commons to take tea “with Bertie but he had no news from Munich so far.”

  Not everyone looked upon Chamberlain as a saviour of peace. In fact, a good segment of the government and the public were violently against his “peace negotiations” and his pro-Munich pact, which delineated Czechoslovakia’s new frontiers decidedly in Germany’s favour. By the majority of his countrymen, Chamberlain was still regarded as a great peacemaker.

  Queen Mary, as always, remained above the politics of the day, but personal situations made that a difficult task. In the autumn of 1937, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor had chosen to visit Germany and to meet with Hitler, obviously not recognising the worldwide impression that this visit might somehow have been authorised by the British government. Paul Schmidt, Hitler’s interpreter, says the Duke “did not discuss political questions,” but he was “frank and friendly” and “displayed the social charm for which he is known throughout the world.” The Duchess “joined only occasionally in the conversation, and then with great reserve, when any question of special interest to women arose. She was simply and appropriately dressed and made a lasting impression on Hitler. ’She would have made a good Queen,’ he said when they had gone.”

  The American press duly reported of this trip that indeed “the Abdication did rob Germany of a firm friend.” The Duke of Windsor, in fact, had been very critical of English politics and British Ministers, and these comments had made their way into the German and English press. Queen Mary’s anger intensified at the son who would continue to speak his mind on controversial issues, while at the same time, David kept writing to ask his mother to see him and his wife. In July 1938, Queen Mary wrote a strong letter of refusal, closing it with:

  “... I do not think you have realised the shock, which the attitude you took up [referring to his Abdication] caused your family & the whole nation. It seemed inconceivable to those who had made much greater sacrifices during the war that you, as their King, refused a lesser sacrifice... My feelings for you as your Mother remain the same, and our being parted and the cause of it, grieve me beyond words. After all, all my life I have put my country before everything else and I simply cannot change now.”

  Not long after this, Queen Mary was visited by ex-Kaiser Wilhelm’s grandson Fritzi, who came directly from a stay with his grandfather in Doorn. Queen Mary was extremely fond of Fritzi, and the visit led to an exchange of letters with Wilhelm and his cousin, King George’s widow. After Chamberlain’s trip to Munich, he wrote her: “I have not the slightest doubt that Mr. N. Chamberlain was inspired by Heaven & guided by God who took pity on his children on Earth by crowning his mission with such relieving success. God bless him. I kiss your hand in respectful devotion as ever.”

  “Poor William,” Queen Mary wrote Bertie, enclosing the letter with the suggestion that it be consigned to the archives at Windsor,* “he must have been horrified at the thought of another war between our 2 countries.”

  Wilhelm’s grandson had reported to Chips Channon that in Queen Mary’s meeting with him she had “been sorely conscience stricken” about King George and her failure to help the Russian Royal Family escape, and that the Kaiser had told Fritzi only the week before that he was “still haunted by the fate which befell the Czar and his family.”

  In case of a second world war, the Royal Family would not have to fight cousin against cousin as they had in the 1914–1918 war. Unlike Russia then, Queen Mary knew that if war came and if Britain went under, there would be no powerful relation for Britain’s Royal Family even to look to for refuge.

  Footnotes

  *Ironically, the Abdication brought the people closer to the Monarchy, and perhaps because of World War II and King George VI’s high visibility to his subjects during it, the House of Windsor became even more popular and secure.

  *Queen Dowagers did enter into other coronation activities. However, at the time of King George V’s coronation, Queen Alexandra did not.

  *The three United States representatives were Ambassador Robert Worth Bingham, General John Joseph Pershing, and Admiral Hugh Rodman.

  *Except for dispensations, as in the case of Communist and Socialist M.P.s who could wear ordinary evening dress.

  *The explanation the Archbishop (Cosmo Gordon Lang) had for this incident was as follows: “The King was very anxious that the Crown should be placed on his head with the right side to the front. Accordingly it was arranged that a small thin line of red cotton should be inserted under one of the principal jewels on the front. It was there when I saw the Crown in the Annexe before the ceremony. But when the Dean brought the Crown to me on its cushion from the Altar and I looked for my little red line it was not there. So I had to turn the Crown round to see if it was on the other side; but it was not. Some officious person must have removed it.”

  *Publicly, of course, Wallis Simpson upon her marriage to the Duke of Windsor became the Duchess of Windsor. Socially, it was always to be a problem. English people did not call her HRH, but Americans did. Privately, the Duke of Windsor insisted their staff refer to her as HRH, as he always did in formal situations. And he instructed her to sign the wedding register as royalty always did—with her Christian name. This document is signed by the Duchess of Windsor, simply Wallis. However, her true Christian name was Bessie Wallis.

  †Château de Cande was owned by Charles Bedeaux, who had not even met the Duke of Windsor before his generous offer to the trouble-beset lovers of the château as a place of refuge was accepted.

  ‡Katherine and Herman Rogers were close American friends of the Duchess of Windsor. Years before she had been their guest in Peking.

  §Lady Alexandra Metcalfe claims there were only seven English people present, but in fact there were eight: Lady Alexandra and Major Metcalfe; Walter Monckton; Sir George Allen; Randolph Churchill; Hugh Thomas; Lady Selby; and Dudley Forwood, HRH’s Equerry. The owner of the Chateau de Cande, Mr. Charles Bedeaux and his wife, were also present, as were the Americans, Mrs. Bessie Merryman and Katherine and Herman Rogers.

  |The Church of England did not recognise divorce, and its clergy did not usually officiate at a remarriage of a divorced person. At first it appeared that the bridal couple would have to be married only in a French civil ceremony. Then an offer came from Reverend R. A. Jardine of Darlington, England, and was immediately accepted. Although Jardine could not have remarried a divorced person in England, there was no religious law prohibiting him from officiating at such a wedding on the Continent. Jardine and his wife were later (to the Windsors’ distress) to tour the United States as the clergy who had married the Windsors.

  *Upon her divorce from Ernest Simpson, the new Duchess of Windsor had taken back the name Warfield.

  *The paper now resides there.

  THIRTY

  From September 1938—when the Prime Minister had sacrificed Czechoslovakia at Munich—until August 23, 1939, when Germany and Russia signed a ten-year nonaggression pact binding each other not to aid opponents in war acts, Britain was in a state of suspended anxiety. A photograph was sent across the world of Leopold von Hoesch driving in a car flying a huge swastika as it passed beneath the red flag at the Kremlin. The treaty had been signed by von Hoesch for the German Government and Vyacheslav Molotov for the Government of the U.S.S.R.

  Adolf Hitler had his boot set to march on Poland when warned by the British Ambassador that Britain would fight if such an act of aggression occurred. The Führer announced he would move into Poland at 6:00 P.M. on August 23 but, at the last moment, postponed the date to August 26. Britain was stunned. “... it means that we are humbled to dust,” Harold Nicolson wrote in his diary. Mobilisation was ordered in France as well as in Britain, giving every indication that France was ready to go to war with Germany upon a call for help from Poland.

  Warning notices went out to reservists in all the armed and civilian services; Londoners were ordered to bl
ack out their windows at night until further notice; the Royal Air Force was posed for instant action; British warships were reported in the Skagerrak, between the Norwegian and Danish coasts; an immediate embargo was placed on unlicensed exports of essential war materials; and King George was returning from Balmoral to London for an emergency session the following day of both Houses of Parliament, which was expected to give the Government sweeping powers (for any purpose that the national interest might require) of a sort unknown in Britain since the last war.

  London was suffocatingly hot and still on August 24. The Prime Minister looked older, drawn, dignified, and solemn. The fire had died in him, and his words were shocking only in their lack of any inspiration. “He was exactly like a coroner summing up a case for murder,” Harold Nicolson noted. And Chips Channon adds: “... Winston [Churchill] held his face in his hands and occasionally nodded his head in agreement with the P.M. ... the whole House expects war.”

  By nightfall, London and all coastal areas were in darkness. Throughout the land there was a frightening calm. The people prepared for war, but they simply could not believe it would come. Then on Sunday morning, September 3, after Hitler had refused an ultimatum to halt his attack on Poland, Britain and France reluctantly declared war. At 11:15 A.M., Prime Minister Chamberlain, speaking over the radio from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street, informed the British people that “this country is at War against Germany.” At 11:32 A.M., air-raid sirens rang throughout London, sending its inhabitants to shelters. The calm was gone. But the fear remained. Seventeen minutes later, the all-clear signals were sounded. The alarm had been only a test, but the sirens were a harbinger of things to come.